Odell Beckham Jr. rips Giants in Twitter tirade
The Browns' Odell Beckham answers questions during a news conference on April 1, 2019. Credit: AP/Ron Schwane
Odell Beckham Jr. usually finds a way for his true feelings to emerge. So while he had been mostly diplomatic and reflective since he was traded from the Giants to the Browns in early March, on Monday night he lashed out at his former team in a series of posts on Twitter.
“I never understood ‘the truth shall set u free…’ " he wrote. “WOWWW , I finally get it.”
In one of his responses to a fan who called him a “cancer,” Beckham wrote: “Ask any one of my teammates of who I was as a teammate and a man and a person.... yes I’m cancer to a place that’s ok wit losing because I want to win that BADDD. Ur absolutely correct !”
In another post, he seemed to mock Giants general manager Dave Gettleman’s stance on Beckham in the weeks before the trade.
“ 'We didn’t sign him to trade him...' " Beckham wrote, quoting Gettleman. “[Y]ou don’t get married to get a divorce ... I tried my best , the situation I had been in since I got there never changed ... we were still losing. PERIOD... money doesn’t bring happiness brotha... remember that.”
The tirade seemed to stem from an inaccurate characterization by a third party of quotes attributed to Gettleman in a story in NJ.com. In that article, Gettleman spoke about how he had changed the culture of the Giants’ locker room, and when asked if there was still an issue regarding the attitude of the team, he replied: “Not anymore.”
NJ.com wrote later in a follow-up that Beckham was never mentioned in the conversation with Gettleman, and when pressed on a timeline for the change, Gettleman pointed to a practice in the middle of last season, when Beckham was on the team. Still, that quote seemed to have set Beckham off.
“Im not playin shotsss are fired!!!” he wrote in one post. In another he added: “Im not upset in ANY way about where I landed. But outta respect what they did was crazy! And beyond disrespectful ! I wanted nothin but the best for NY. But on to a new chapter.... ITS LIFE.”
Beckham did circle back several times during the Twitterstorm to talk about how happy and free he feels with the Browns.
“Im not upset in ANY way about where I landed,” he wrote. “Lol smh damn that’s crazy I can’t have a lil funnn bro!?!? And trust me I have moved on, sorry if it seems like I haven’t because I just want to speak the truth!”
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
